SOS Darfur: UN Peace-keeping force now!

On the occasion of the inauguration of the UN campus in Bonn by UN General Secretary Kofi Annan and the German Chancellor Angela Merkel the Society for Threatened Peoples (GfbV) drew attention with a human rights campaign to the genocide in Darfur and called for the immediate sending of a UN peace-keeping force. With the Reaper with his black cloak and scythe and skeletons GfbV workers together with Sudanese exiles living in Germany reminded us that as a result of the inactivity of the Security Council some 400,000 Muslim black Africans in the west of the Sudan have fallen victim to the murderous policies of the Khartoum government since February 2003.

"The United Nations and the international community dare no longer sit back and watch the Sudanese government refusing proper protection against attacks for the civilian population in Darfur”, said the GfbV Africa correspondent, Ulrich Delius. The GfbV appealed to the UN General Secretary, Kofi Annan, to increase once more his pressure on the Security Council and the Sudan in order to ensure the speedy installation of a UN peace-keeping force in Darfur. "While we hesitate there are more people dying everyday and the suffering of the helpless civilians continues”, Ahmed Musa, Help for Darfur, emphasizes the GfbV’s demands.

"Darfur could become a similar disaster to Ruanda and Srebrenica if swift action is not taken”, said Delius. It is only international pressure which can ensure that the resistance of the Sudanese government against a swift stationing of a UN peace-keeping force is overcome. It was only last week that Sudan’s President, Omar Hassan al Bashir, emphasised once more his rejection of a UN peace-keeping force. However the Sudanese government is divided in its attitude to a UN mission. For in Khartoum the South Sudanese Freedom Movement SPLM supports the sending of UN peace-keeping soldiers.

UN General Secretary Kofi Annan recently termed Darfur as the "worst nightmare in modern history”. All attempts to make the Security Council exercise more pressure on the Sudanese government have so far failed as a result of the resistance of China, Russia and some Muslim states.